As soon as we got to the garage, I started to feel like I had an itch I couldn't scratch. Knowing what I knew and not bringing it up wasn't going to be an option unless I wanted to drive myself literally insane. I decided to segue in with the photos of the car first.
"The oil cap was loose,” Gareth said as he handed me the keys. "You should bring it here for oil changes from now on. Whoever did the last one is incompetent."
"I will," I said.
Gareth started to close the bay doors to the garage. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that the office was empty as well. There was a staircase in the center of the building between the garage and the office that led to a second floor.
I looked up in that direction. If Voodoo hadn't been with me, I'd have felt nervous. "Are the other employees upstairs?" I asked.
"Nah. It's just me. Office manager had to leave early to pick up her little boy from school. Gary, the other tech isn't here today, and the owner almost never stops in anymore. It's just me in all my glory,” he said and closed the last bay door. "Your car is parked out front, so you don't have to stick around if you don't want to."
Gareth wasn't standing between me and the door. Even if I was just a normal person, I could have left at any time. I was the one still standing there while he closed up the shop.
"So, it probably won't come as any surprise to you, but I went over to Rosaline's house,” I said.
"You did?"
"Yeah, I was looking around the outside. I guess I got bored and wanted to see if anyone was coming or going. Like a mini stakeout." I was lying, and it didn't feel very good. For whatever reason, I'd taken to Gareth, and lying to him felt icky. "Anyway, while I was hanging around, a car parked in the alley and the person went inside. But I didn't see who it was. I took a picture of the car and the license plate. I figured if anyone in this town would recognize it, that would be you."
"Let me see,” Gareth said.
I took out my phone and pulled up the pictures. Gareth took the phone from my hand, and I jumped a little when his pinky brushed against mine. It was like a static discharge or something. I looked up to see if he'd noticed, but I was relieved to see he hadn't.
"That's Felix McCoy’s car,” Gareth said. "I wonder what he was doing breaking into Rosy's house?"
"I don't know,” I said. I almost let it slip that he'd gone into the bedroom I wasn't in, but I caught myself in time.
"How do you know for sure that he was in her house? You said you didn't see him go in. Maybe he was just walking around outside and you didn't see him. You guys could have just missed each other."
Crud. How was I going to explain that I did know for sure that he was in there without revealing that I'd been in Rosaline's house?
"I thought I saw someone upstairs moving around behind a curtain. I'm pretty sure there was someone inside,” I said.
"What time?" Gareth asked. "I can call Rosaline's family and ask if anyone was supposed to be there. If not, then we can be pretty certain that someone went in."
I told him that it had been shortly after I'd left the shop earlier. He walked over to the other side of the garage and called someone. I assumed it was Rosaline's mother or father. The conversation seemed tense from his end, and it ended quickly.
"Because a neighbor thought they might have seen someone inside,” he said and paused. "I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the person inside was Felix McCoy." Another pause. "Yeah, they got a picture of his car in the alley." Another pause. "I know. I know. Please don't worry. I'll handle this."
"So, it's confirmed?" I asked when he walked back over to me.
"Yeah. Looks like he broke in. Who knows what for. She's dead, and it's not like he could get revenge or anything,” Gareth said and rubbed the back of his neck. "I need to call Bethany and tell her what you've told me. I'll tell her you have pictures to confirm it. I'm going to go upstairs and call from there. There's a TV and beer up there. I think I'm going to need the beer."
"Oh, okay. I'll go then,” I said.
"You don't have to. You and the dog can join me. Her funeral is tomorrow. I wouldn't mind the company for a while."
I felt bad leaving him alone, plus I hadn't had much chance to ask him about the possibility that things weren't good in their relationship. "I can stay for a little while. I don't know about beer, though. Do you have a Coke or a Pepsi maybe?"
"I think I can hook you up,” he said. "I hope you don't mind that I'm dirty and covered with grease."
"It's fine,” I said. "I kind of like the smell of motor oil, for some reason."
"You'd be surprised how much I hear that."
We went upstairs and Gareth motioned for me to sit down on a clean but worn sofa. It had been patched in a couple of places with what looked like scraps of flannel shirt.
While I sat, he went across the room to a small refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of beer and another of Coke. Stuck to the side of the fridge with a magnet was a bottle opener he used to pop the tops.
"Here you go,” he said as he handed me the icy cold soda.
I took a drink as Gareth rolled a chair over from a nearby desk and sat down. I'd expected him to sit on the sofa with me. I didn't know why I felt a little disappointed that he hadn't.
Gareth ran his hand over his dark beard and studied me with his piercing eyes. He took a drink of his beer without looking away from me, and I felt exposed.
"Something wrong?" I asked and nervously sipped my soda.
"Just trying to figure you out,” he said.
Voodoo jumped up on the couch and lay down next to me. "You don't mind?"
"Nah. It's an old thing. He's welcome."
"Thanks,” I said and then bit my bottom lip to keep from blurting out my question. Did you and Rosaline have any problems?
"What's on your mind, Allegra? I can see the wheels churning in that head of yours."
"I don't want to be a jerk,” I said.
"We've been over this already. You're not going to hurt my feelings or offend me. Unless you think I'm too weak to handle whatever you're planning on throwing at me. Just ask."
"Were things between you and Rosaline okay?" I asked and then held my breath.
Gareth opened his mouth to say something, but then shut it quickly. He ran his hand over his beard again. "I think things were on their way back up again,” he said after considering it for a while longer.
"So at some point recently, they weren't good?"
"You could say that. Look, I want to preface this by saying that our relationship wasn't always easy for Rosaline. Not because of us, but because of everyone around us. A lot of people saw me as nothing more than an opportunistic criminal. She always defended me, but I know that had to wear on her. That and her family thought she could do better, and I think they told her that at every opportunity."
"So, she wanted to leave you?" I asked.
"No, but I don't know that she always wanted to stay with me either. Because of that, she let herself get too close to one of her psychic clients. Rosaline said it never got physical, and I believe her. But at one point, I wasn't sure that mattered,” Gareth said with a sigh. He took another drink from his bottle and grimaced.
"She had an affair?"
"An emotional one, yeah. She and the guy started talking more than just her doing his readings. Pretty soon it was phone calls, text messages, emails, and they'd do those video chats. The chats weren't for psychic readings either. I'd think she was home alone working or whatever, and she'd be spending the whole night on a video chat with the guy. So, technically, she was alone. They weren't technically dating, but in my mind they were. When I found out, it hurt. She swore it was nothing, but I asked her if it was nothing, then why did I have to catch her? Why wasn't her friendship with him something I knew about? The fact that it was a secret told me everything I needed to know,” he said.
"Did you guys break up then?"
"For a while. It was more of a break than a breakup,” Gareth said. "I wanted to give
her time and space to figure out what she wanted. At the time, I hoped that she'd choose me. I was so in love with her that I didn't care what her betrayal meant. I didn't start thinking about that until much later."
"But you still decided to give it another shot?" I asked.
"Yeah, I mean, we'd been engaged to be married. I didn't think that you just threw that away."
"You keep talking about it like you think you made a mistake,” I said.
"I think we could have worked things out temporarily, but I know now that we never would have worked. I don't think she ever cared about me the way I cared about her, and I also think that my bitterness over her lies would have grown like a cancer in me,” he said. "I feel bad telling you this stuff, but it also feels good to be honest."
"Maybe you guys would have made it work. If you loved each other enough, anything was possible,” I said.
"That's the thing. I don't know if we ever really loved each other." Gareth took a long swig of his beer. "But I was dumb enough over her that I would have spent my life trying."
"You know if people hear about this..." I started to say, but he cut me off.
"That I killed her? Nah. I mean, maybe the worst gossips in town will say it, but I broke things off with her once. I didn't need to kill Rosy to end our relationship."
"So, tell me flat-out honestly, did you cheat on her too? Maybe just because she'd done it. Or were you seeing someone else while you two were on a break?"
"Nope, never. Even when she was figuring out if she wanted to be with me or that other dude, I stayed faithful to her."
"I'm not sure what to say."
"What about you?" Gareth asked.
"Me?"
"Yeah, since we're laying it all bare here. What about you and... Alex?" he asked.
"I thought everything was fine. Great actually."
"You don't sound so sure now,” Gareth said.
"The idea that maybe he isn't missing, and that maybe he did just leave, is starting to sink into the little cracks in my mind,” I said.
"Why? What changed?"
I couldn't tell him about Athan. All that witch stuff and about hunters... I couldn't tell Gareth any of it. It bothered me that I couldn't open up to him about my life, but that part had to stay hidden.
"It just makes more sense. What's more likely? That a grown man was kidnapped and there's been no sign of him? Or that he just got everything he wanted from this town and moved on?"
"That's a rough way to think of things, Allegra,” he said.
"Yeah, but I get the feeling you're not arguing with me because you think the same thing."
"We're quite the pair," was his only response.
"I guess we are."
"You want to watch a movie?" he asked.
On the wall across from the sofa was a television. I studied the black screen while I tried to find a reason not to stay.
"Sure," I eventually decided. "Why not?"
"I'll order pizza,” Gareth said. "You pick."
He handed me a remote for one of those Amazon stick thingies. I scrolled through the movies while he called in a pizza order.
We started watching a movie when he got off the phone. I picked something with lots of action and explosions. Gareth didn't seem to mind. I didn't want to choose anything sad, sappy, or romantic.
When Gareth went to get the pizza from the delivery driver, Voodoo turned to me. "What are you doing?"
"Watching a movie with a new friend,” I said. "Is there a problem with that?"
"I better get some pizza," Voodoo groused.
"I'll see what I can do,” I said and scratched behind his ear.
I couldn't say anything else because I heard Gareth coming back up the stairs. When he got to the top, he rolled a metal table over to the sofa and put the pizza down.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"I thought I heard you talking to someone." He looked confused.
"I sat on the remote and started the movie again. Don't worry, I fixed it,” I said with a smile.
Ugh, I hated lying to him. Even something little like that made me feel gross.
"Oh, ha-ha. I do that all of the time,” he said. "I hope you don't mind that we have to eat out of the box. I don't exactly have dishes and cutlery. Though, I might be able to scrounge up some paper plates around here somewhere."
"Out of the box is fine,” I said. "I'm not fancy."
"I think you're fancier than you let on," he teased.
"Let's just say that I was a lot more high maintenance in a former life, but now I'm cool with eating right out of the pizza box."
"That's my girl,” Gareth said.
We watched the movie and ate pizza quietly. It was nice. More fun than I'd expected. I slipped Voodoo bites of pizza while Gareth pretended not to notice.
"I should go,” I said when the movie is over. "You've got a long day tomorrow."
"Yeah, I think I'm just going to crash here,” Gareth said. "I've had a couple of beers. I'll go home and get ready for the funeral in the morning."
"Thank you for the Coke and the pizza. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Thank you for staying with me,” Gareth said. "Maybe we can do this again sometime. Although, we could go to my house. It's nothing spectacular, but it's nicer than this place."
"Yes. We should definitely hang out again sometime,” I said, a little more eagerly than I expected.
"I'll walk you to your car."
Gareth did just that. He walked me outside to my car to make sure I was safe and surprised me by pulling me into a hug before I got into the driver's side. I surprised myself by letting him hold me close for a few seconds.
I felt a little pull in my chest like we'd made a connection. It caught me off guard, but it wasn't the time or the place to explore the feeling.
Instead, I got in my car and left. Gareth stood outside and waved to me as I drove away.
When I pulled into my driveway at home, I realized my night was not over yet. There was a black Bentley I didn't recognize parked in front of my house.
I looked in the rearview mirror as I idled toward the garage, and Athan stepped out of the driver's side of the Bentley. I briefly wondered if I could just pull the car into the garage and sneak into the back door of the house.
It quickly became apparent that plan would never work as Athan hurried up the driveway behind me. I got out of the car and he was standing in the doorway.
"What were you doing with that man?" he demanded.
"Oh, wow. Okay. I didn't know you were my father,” I said snidely, but every fiber of my being wanted to tell him I was sorry. I couldn't stand that he seemed upset with me, but it was ridiculous. I wasn't going to be controlled by whatever stupid spell he was using on me. "What business is it of yours what I was doing?"
"Every witch in this town is my business,” Athan said.
"Oh, yeah, do you wait out front of every witch's house for her to come home?" I asked.
"You're impossible, Allegra,” he said with a sigh.
"And you're kind of a creep." I didn't mean it. "Do you want to come inside?"
What the heck?
"What the heck?" Voodoo asked.
"Silence, dog,” Athan said.
"Hey, be nice to my dog or I'm going to retract that offer. You two need to play nice,” I said. "I've got wine and... potato chips? I think."
"Classy," Athan retorted.
"Do you want to come in or not? Because if not, you can get your snobby, ancient butt back in that fancy car and roll on down the road,” I said instead of what I wanted to say. Which was: Please don't leave. Please come in and hang out with me. You smell really good. Like summer rain and sweet oranges. It's incredible.
Being around Athan had turned my insides into a desperate eight grade girl with a wicked crush. I was going to have to ask Trixie and Voodoo to help me come up with a protection spell to shield me from his magic. Not that I had a snowball's chance
in heck of warding off elder magic, but I had to try. I took comfort in the fact that when Athan left, I'd stop going gaga over him. I wouldn't think of him at all once I was outside the range of his magic. At least, that's what I told myself.
"I've never been in here before,” Athan said as he walked through the kitchen and started down the hall.
"Make yourself at home,” I said.
He appeared back in the doorway and startled me. "It's adequate."
"Thanks, I guess,” I said. "If you've never been here before, then I'll go out on a limb and assume you weren't close to my uncle."
"Your uncle kept to himself as far as witches went. He seemed more interested in the ice cream shop than with anything to do with us. We thought it was strange, but he never did any harm, so we let him be," Athan admitted. "You said there would be wine and potato chips."
"Ah yes. I think a nice Riesling would go well with chips," I mused. "I have a bottle in the fridge."
"You don't have a wine cellar."
"No, but I assure you the refrigerator does a fine job of keeping the wine chilled."
"I thought I saw a parlor. I'll wait there for you."
"It's a living room,” I said with a chuckle. "And yes, make yourself at home. I'll be right there."
"You're really going to serve a member of the Elder Council wine and potato chips in our living room?" Voodoo asked as I got a new bag of chips from the pantry.
"They're fresh,” I said with a shrug.
"Do you really think this is a good idea?" Voodoo asked.
"No. I think it's a terrible idea, but I think he's using some sort of magic on me. Whenever he's around, I just want to be near him,” I said. "If you could maybe help with that. Why can't you protect me? Is it because he's an elder?"
"Well, that might be it,” Voodoo said. "If he was using magic on you."
"What?"
"I'm not picking up any kind of spell like that,” Voodoo said.
"Maybe it's just too advanced for you to detect,” I said.
Sprinkles, Spelled, and Slayed Page 8
